Purim – Amalek, Nazi’s and Jewish Name Calling

 

Purim – Amalek, Nazi’s and Jewish Name Calling

…it is not worth it to leave them alone.
Megilat Esther 3-8

This is what the wicked Haman said to King Achashverosh when he wanted to annihilate the Jewish people. This stupid move caused hundreds of thousands of gentile casualties in two days of sanctioned civil war in 127 countries ruled by Achashverosh. Fortunately, Jews were not among the casualties.

 

According to our tradition Haman was a descendant of Amalek. Amalek was totally destroyed by kings Shaul, David and Chizkiyahu. However, certain individuals of that cursed nation obviously lived on. Haman was a successful one of these individuals.

Amalek won its fame in the Torah by murdering the sick, elderly, nursing mothers and innocent children. After Beney Yisrael miraculously left servitude in Egypt the Amalekites attacked the Jews and killed those who walked slow. These were elderly and infirmed. The Amalek way of life and philosophy is diametrically opposed to anything Jewish.

We are accustomed to take care of the oppressed even if they are strangers from another country. They went out to find Beney Yisrael in the desert. Knowing that they could not win a face to face battle they decimated the weak.

Haman was a typical Amalekite. It was most important to him that the Jewish people all be violently murdered including cute little children and G-d fearing women.

In Sefer Devarim (25-17) we are told to remember what Amalek did to us when we left Egypt. This commandment is preceded by two other subjects which are despicable and should not be done.

First the Torah says that when two men are fighting the wife of one of them grabs the opponents genitals in wanting to save her husband. This women is to have her hand chopped off. Some say that she is to pay the value of her hand while others say that the fighter can chop her hand off in the midst of the fight.

Secondly we are told that in order to have a long life we should be careful that our measuring implements and stones for scales should be accurate. You should not have 2 sets, one which is accurate and the other which is used for stealing from customers.

The Kli Yakar states that this creep uses the fake stones to weigh goods for certain customers while he uses the good ones for others. When someone suspects him of stealing he will call the customers who he gave the correct amount to so that they can testify on his behalf.

The Olam Hatanach follows the thoughts of the Shada”l. He says that these three activities are fraudulent. They involve deceit and activities which are not honest. With regards to bad measuring implements the Ibn Ezra comments that a Government which allows such activities will quickly crumble.

With regards to Amalek it is stated that they did not fear G-d. Any nation which encourages the cruel murder of pretty Jewish children, the weak, the old and the disabled has no fear of G-d, even if they claim to do it for religions sake as many terrorists and fundamentalists do today.

We have subsequently become accustomed to call any nation which does such activities Amalek. The Europeans of the 20th century, and previous ones, have been called Amalek. Their cruel murder of many millions of Jews for no reason has proven them to be spiritual descendants of Haman. He said that it is not worthwhile to leave the Jews be. Like Haman they exhausted so much energy on killing Jews that it led to their destruction.

The European Nazi’s society is based on such disgusting activities. A Nazi is not a Jew.

In the aftermath of World War II the state of Israel rose. During the first years you would never hear a particular group of Jews compared to such a society in any manner whatsoever.

Although we may have our own problems no group of Jews feels that life would be better if only we tortured and utterly decimated the other group.

Of late it has become common on all different sides of many arguments in Israel to compare the “other” to the Nazi’s. Recently wearers of a certain Kippah have been compared by left wing elements in the army to Nazi’s. Before this the late Prime Minister Rabin was compared to the SS and all of his left wing followers to Nazi’s. Demonstrators who are beaten up by the police often compare the Police’s behavior to the Nazi’s. Indeed, I have heard this from Right and Left wing demonstrators as well religious and anti religious demonstrators.

No matter how nasty any of these groups are they do not do as Haman, Amalek and the Nazi’s did. They do not throw cute and innocent little children in the air and shoot them dead. They do not pile people into sealed “showers” and gas them do death. They do not make laws forcing citizens to do these acts.

The Jewish state and the holy Jewish people or any portion of these are never to be compared to Amalek, Haman or the Nazi’s.

mailto:steve@gindi.co.il